Caitlyn King - Being Under Water

 "IT IS THE VAGINA OF THE UNIVERSE."

                -Prof. Kip Redick, on the fourth day of class

"PROFESSOR I UNDERSTAND NOW WHAT YOU MEANT ABOUT THE WAYERFALL. WATERNIS SO SPRIITUAL AND RELIGIOUS!!"

                   -Me, in an email, in a rush of dopamine after taking a walk in the rain.

Listen, when I first heard Professor Redick say that, I thought 'Jesus, this is gonna be our professor?' and wrote him off. Because who would say that being under a waterfall is likened to be the vagina of the universe? But then I started thinking (which is almost never good) more about it, and I'm starting to go, 'Yeah. This guy's right.'

Water is so prevalent in symbolism. It represents being reborn, a change, adapting to your circumstances. It is amazing. When I was a kid, I loved going into the pool and floating. Have you ever done that? Floated in the water, with it flooding your ears, lapping at your eyes? Your hearing changes. You can hear the people moving beside you in the pool, splashes, everything is muffled and everything is calm. You tilt back up, and suddenly you are back in the real world.

As time went on, instead of the pool I found myself more interested in the ocean. Now, there are different rules when you drift in the ocean than when you float in the pool. For one, you are always in more danger when you drift. You need an anchor when you drift in the ocean, because how else could you realize how far you went out, or how long it's been?

But oh, the noises. On occasion, you could hear dolphin calls, little clicking noises that you would have to concentrate on; otherwise, it's just waves. It's a different sound than those ASMR white noise ocean wave videos on YouTube--it's more subtle, more all encompassing. As you tilt with the waves, rocking up and down, you hear the waves you are in, and the ones around you. You can hear your legs lazily kicking.

My favorite method of being under water, however, is the rain. How I love the rain. It's everywhere in Virginia and it varies from time to time. Light drizzles to thunderstorms to flood warnings. Walking in the rain feels like a religious spiritual cleanse. Feeling the power of multiple individual water drops soak through my hair, making my vision bleary, sticking to my skin, is a feeling like no other.

Anyway, all this to say that I sent an email to Professor Redick past midnight, where I most likely seemed under the influence but was surprisingly sober.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Example of a Blog Post

 Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of ...
Read more

Rose Baker - Herbert's "Dune" and Martyrs

  In class, we talked about Jesus and Christianity as an example of myth. Myths and martyrs are dangerous to systems of control because even if they’re suppressed, they can survive and grow stronger. They last because they’re tied to belief, memory, and emotion---things you can’t fully erase. That’s what makes them more powerful than systems built on forced order or control. Even though much of the early church died gruesome deaths, and were consistently ordered to stop spreading the gospel, the "myth" of Jesus has continued for over 2000 years.      In Frank Herbert's  Dune , we see something similar. The Bene Gesserit know how powerful myths can be, and instead of waiting for one to form naturally, they build one on purpose. Through the Missionaria Protectiva , they plant stories and prophecies across different cultures, preparing the world for someone to fulfill the one part they can't fabricate, the living, breathing "savior" who must be visible and prov...
Read more

Joanah Eresechima - Blue Lock's Exploration of Flow

In the sixth chapter of American Camino , the concept of flow is extensively explained in the context of spiritual walking. It is described as unification of action and awareness to create a state in which thoughts are non-existent. The hiker just moves through the world, extremely aware and focused on the wilderness around them but unable to thoroughly reflect on it in that moment. It is only afterwards that the hiker is able to recall the memories from their flow state. Flow can occur in different types of people like artists, scientists and athletes (Redick 249). I was actually very surprised to see this term in the book because it becomes one of the central components in a manga I read called Blue Lock. The story followed a boy named Isagi Yoichi, a high school soccer player who got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a soccer program called Blue Lock meant to create the greatest striker in the world. Out of 300 players, he was ranked 299 th , making him one of the weakest p...
Read more